Sophie Molineux won’t play any further part in Australia’s multi-format series against India after pulling up sore following last week’s opening ODI in Brisbane. A niggling lower-back complaint has already ruled the all-rounder out of the remaining two one-dayers and next week’s pink-ball Test in Perth, and it now threatens her proposed first stint as full-time captain on the West Indies tour in March.
National selector Shawn Flegler broke the news on Channel 7. “Sophie’s developed a bit of lower back pain over the last few days,” he explained. “So unfortunately that means she’s going to miss the rest of the series and we’ll look towards her being available for the West Indies series coming up. So we don’t want to take any risks with the T20 World Cup coming up.
“She’s still right to bat, still right to run, but it’s just the bowling that she’s got a little bit of pain at the moment … we’ll get her scanned and then we’ll have to offload her for a little while and that’s why we don’t want to take any chances with the next few matches coming up.”
It’s another frustrating interruption for the 28-year-old, whose past two seasons have been punctuated by shoulder and knee issues. This latest setback surfaced just as she appeared to be settling into a leadership groove, having captained the T20 leg against India and been named vice-captain for both the ODIs and the forthcoming Test.
If the scans show anything more serious, Australia may need to reshuffle the leadership group once again. Joint deputies Ashleigh Gardner and Tahlia McGrath are the obvious stand-ins; McGrath, interestingly, hasn’t played a T20I all summer but was handed the vice-captaincy for Sunday’s second ODI.
Alyssa Healy’s return to the side after a brief injury lay-off had allowed selectors to experiment with succession plans. Losing Molineux, even temporarily, places that planning on hold and also thins Australia’s spin-bowling stocks.
Healy told Fox Cricket the announcement had caught the squad by surprise. “The Sophie Molineux news today was a bit of a shock for everyone and a disappointing one for her,” she said.
The wider injury picture is hardly rosy. Ellyse Perry and Kim Garth are both nursing quad strains and will sit out the ODI leg; their availability for the WACA Test on 6 March remains uncertain. For coach Shelley Nitschke, managing workloads in a World Cup year has suddenly become trickier than expected.
While no replacement has yet been named, selectors will weigh up whether to bring in an extra specialist spinner or rely on Gardner’s off-breaks and Grace Harris’s part-timers. Either way, the Australians are keen to avoid rushing Molineux back before the Caribbean trip or, more importantly, the T20 World Cup that follows.
